VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Returning to Mia [v1.2.0] [Inceton]

As a sucker for a redemption story, as opposed to a corruption story, I went through Returning To Mia before Summer With Mia. So, out of sequence.

Being new to AVNs this is my first review.

I enjoyed the story. Parts of it were tedious at times, elements involving Vivian for example. But adding the girlfriend when they did was an interesting touch, frustrating as hell also. Adding the MC's mother was unexpected, though I feel it wasn't really developed the way it could have been, just kind of dropped on the plot and left there.

Hard to know with any one run through just how important certain choices are. Emma was certainly cast as an ominous almost evil character but toward the end she didn't seem that way at all. Perhaps different choices would have presented different paths there.

The renders were fantastic, with beautiful models and interesting clothing shots.

Animations were impressive. Even just the little eye movements and eyelashes that moved at various times added a layer to the narrative which was quite impressive when compared to simpler representations - where it is all about the wording on the screen not the fusion of words and imagery.

Performance and playability seemed good. I used a Mod for guidance on what options to choose, integration seemed solid with no bugs I could find. Large file size, ~17GB. But to be expected with the amount of content inside.

The amount of content was good, balancing well between quite lengthy sex scenes and enough diversity of them to keep it interesting.

Overall, a very impressive package. Probably enough to get Volume 1 and run through it when time presents, to fill in some gaps.

Peace.

terrific plot, many options to customize story. First version was only a demo compared to this one. Nice crossover with characters from other games of this creator, giving form to the "inceverse". Can't wait for new ones.

1. Play the prequel first. It's worth it for that VN alone.
2. We get a direct continuation of that story 2yrs later or so.
3. Characters from the first story show up here.

* I like the models for the most part, except they are basically the same body types, so no variety.
* Giselle does it for me more than any other character
* I did get invested in the story and the characters that I had to finish all 10 chapters + epilogue
* Sancho Multi-mod is needed to keep this interesting and unlock different paths without having to replay/skip from the beginning. For instance, I save before a scene, turn on/off specific events, and now I get the new scene.

OVERALL:
I'd recommend fans of the first one to check this out.
I wish there was more corruption involved, versus how quickly some relationships with MC jump almost directly into sex.
I'm looking to see what the Dev is going to come up with next.

As other mentioned playing the other game first does help. The game has flashbacks and I'm not sure I would even have realised what was going on if I hadnt played the other game, to recognise the scenes.

This game is almost unplayable for one seemingly-small reason - the dark chat box keeps fading in and out, basically flashing.. There is zero benefit to having it to this and it is absolutely HORRIBLE to try and play with

The renders are good, although the facial expressions dont often match the emotion but you'll be too distracted by the hideous flashing text box to care, unless you extract and replace the image

The writing is pretty good, people actually seem to have thoughts between their actions (why is that so often not the case!?) and MC is a reasonable person, though he still seems scared of women

You have to play the prequel, Summer with Mia, first so this story makes more sense, but it's an excellent game that should be higher rated!

Beautiful models and a very clever story to back it. If you like path driven games, then this is the best type; you get to have your fun, especially with side girls that don't affect your main path, and there's some solid endings.

I get that some don't like the lack of a harem path, but I reloaded from a early save & ran a few other paths after finishing the main. Yes, you miss a little, but it's still excellent game and definitely recommended!

I feel like my biggest problem with this game is that I wanted a sequel to Summer with Mia, but this feels like a completely different game with the same characters. The name change makes sense because this really does not remind me of the first game at all. If anything, it feels like a new iteration.


Returning to Mia adds a more serious tone to its predecessor by including choices that seem impactful, but it miss the mark. A lot of choices aren't even necessary. That leaves the player questioning why they are there in the first place. It gives you choices, but the outcome is already determined whether you made the choice or not. Most of the big choices are made without your input at all. You don't get to choose if you have a girlfriend, but have to make choices regarding her wellbeing. Which makes it worse because there is no history there besides a made up one that wasn't chose by the player. Why is your girlfriend the 5th girl you meet in a dating sim with sex? Making the player feel bad for having a girlfriend they didn't ask for is not a good way to make a character likeable. She should've been an actual choice, not a forced plot device.


I still love the graphics and animations as I did with the first. Inceton knows how to make the best models, but the change in writing is really jarring. I came to play a sequel to the fun, wacky, and funny game that I played previously, but this is not it sadly. Held out hope it would get back to basics, but it never did. Worth a playthrough, but if you're looking for something similar to the first you will be disappointed.

Let's just say it's great visuals: animation and models are gorgeous. Effort was really put into writing large volumes of text and multiple scenes with huge cast of LIs.

So why do I not really care? Because the plot is meandering and most choices don't really matter.In the end. you get 1 of 2 girls, Suggestion for dev: don't intro new LIs unless you have ending mapped out please.

The story about Mia, her friends and family comes to a conclusion. And if you really love Mia, a happy ending too. After "Summer with Mia", there are now also more options in the second part, which can lead to different endings.

Liked: Models, Animations and Overall Render Quality.
Disliked: Story, Guilt Maze, Forced Relationship, No Throuple Story/Ending, Fake Choices.


The animations and overall render quality was really good, all the renders are very well done but story wise the game was not that great, especially for players who are continuing the story from the cliffhanger ending of Sumer with Mia.

For me personally the main disappointment was the forced relationship, i am talking about sadie of course and i personally think the players should have been given a choice in this kind of major decision, instead of forcing an unwanted relationship and then making the players feel guilty about something they had no choice in, i mean if they had a choice then of course the whole guilt maze would make much more sense but right now it just does not, the only thing it does is make the game really not enjoyable, at least i didn't, not even a single scene.

I also must say that i was here for mia's story not for sadie's, not that i disliked her and honestly that was the real problem, she was a prefect love interest in every possible way and breaking up with her was really heartbreaking, that scene made me really gloomy and i actually ended up with fricking teary-eyes...

Honestly the worst part about this is that all of it could have been easily avoided by adding a simple choice about sadie's relationship in the beginning of game or by adding a throuple story and ending for mia and sadie.

The choices given to players seem to have no effect, i did everything possible to reject emma but in the end she was forced on me anyway which is not really that much of a good thing, if this was supposed to happen then the players should not have been given a choice, honestly this is one of the worst things a dev can do, at least in my personal opinion i guess...

I have never rated or reviewed any game before, but I had to make an exception. First part was good but didn't hook me that much. On the other hand, Returning to Mia really sucked me in. Art got a lot better and especially the story, Every character has a personality and doesn't feel rushed at all. None of the characters just throw themselves at MC and I really had to think about some choices I made. I hated some characters at first, but eventually I felt bad when I had to decide on hurting them, which is inevitable. I thought this game will take few hours at most and I will skip through some parts, but to my surprise I read every single line, nothing felt empty and some stuff actually resonated with me. TLDR: Came for a fap, stayed for a story

As per usual I tried to fuck every girl I can until Sadie breaks up with the MC.Boy I actually felt bad, so I stayed loyal for the 2nd playthrough. The outcome did not disappoint.

Never played the prequel, but still enjoyed the sequel. Definitely give this game a try.

The sequel to 'Summer with Mia'. The previous installment was despised by some for its cliffhanger ending and this sequel aimed to tie the story with Mia up nicely.


Characters look gorgeous. Mia is your sister (tho you can name relationships) whom you had a rocky and illicit past with. Previously there was Laura, your mom, who was also very family-friendly. However, in this new adventure the main girls are Mia and Sadie, who is your girlfriend. There's several other girls too, and Laura does visit later in the game (but there's only one intercourse scene with her and you've gotta be single for it -- which you 'accomplish' by cheating on the gf with Cindy, and avoiding romance with Mia, i.e. not giving her an underwater kiss in the pool nor staying with her on a romantic beach-walk).


Story is well done. It keeps progressing as naturally as can be in a porny-environment, not going too fast or slow - though that's subjective. It comes in 10 chapters, and the dev certainly likes his cliffhangers because each one ends on a potentially dramatic note that piqued my curiosity.

Dialog flows well and gives characters the charm to want to spend time with them. It's top notch in terms of porn games. Whereas some, that I'd play more than once, give me a correcting urge where I'd dive into its files to rewrite parts... this one was good as is, and that's rare.

Sex is unfortunately where it gets my criticism. The good is the hot girls, smooth animations and the dirty talk. The bad... ooh boy, do I have a bone to pick. It requires mouse clicks due to a selection screen.

Would recommend! It came really close to getting 5 stars like the previous game, but in this one I had a pet peeve with the sex scenes. All in all, an excellent mix of drama-y plot, dialog and hot characters.

I can not believe the game does not have a higher score....

This game had some great things going for it.
1) It was a perfect sequel to "Summer with Mia"
2) The Incest are treated as proper incest. It was a proper taboo and not just a convenient plot device to start fucking your sister. (Unlike the first game) but more on this later.
3) It was a very beautiful love store with some heartbreaking moments. Not your typical fuck-fest, although there is more than enough lewd content.
4) Although you could have sex with plenty of girls, it never felt that the girls were just falling for a magic dick. Each girl had their own motivation and story to tell and obstacles to overcome.

That does not mean the game was without faults. I did not care much for the Pete side story. The black filler characters still does not do it for me. Not sold on the purpose of Sadie. It was a nice touch, but I would have broken it off with her ages ago.

But that does not detract from the game for me. After Summer with Mia, this one perfectly concludes the first game. I love the emotional turmoil caused by sleeping with the girls, potentially cheating on your GF and ultimately the consequences for your actions.

I also loved the way it treated incest. It was always a taboo and a terrible secret, that was not easily divulged. And not without reason. In game characters were revulsed by it, and the MC and Mia always tried to keep it under wraps.
There was no trope "You are both consenting adults so it 100% ok" incest that is the norm in incest VNs. In this one they did not come out to everyone and it was also not readily accepted by everyone that were told about it. The MC tried everything to keep it a secret.

This was unlike the first "Summer with Mia" game where it fell 100% into all the incest tropes. (Consenting adults, does not hurt anybody blah blah blah.....)


TLDR; Perfect sequel to the first Mia game. Refreshing way it deals with the incest theme. Plenty of sex and very cool sex mechanic.

playing the first part of this journey, Summer with Mia. i was hooked.
i won't lie, the story and characters seemed abit simple and bland at first, just another generic AVN.
im glad i stuck with it, as it transformed to a must play.... i literally couldn't stop, needed to know what was next. as hot as the lewd scenes became, the Dev always added in a variation, a twist to keep you interested and story evolving, and oh boy does it.

like any good story, the evil Dev ended it on a cliff-hangar... the emotional feels was real man.

i am kinda late to party, i knew summer with mia 2 came out, even played afew chapters, was totally hooked again. but i got distracted and took along time to cycle back, didnt help that it got a name change to Returning to Mia.

which im glad, as i had to start again, only this time i saw it was marked as complete. days later i finally finished it..... and boy the Dev has improved, everything from renders, models, animations and writing, and the Feels!!!.
the dev is evil though, adding a GF straight away, man.... i can already guessed what would happen, but guessing and knowing was a roller coaster.

as much as i loathe the no harem and the horrible feels of the breaks and cheating etc.... its a more realistic portrayal of a story. and frankly i liked that. yes these are AVNs and meant to take us away from reality for a while.... but a story grounded in what we know would mostly likely happen in life. has more impact, more connection.

Just like the first game, lots of twists and turns and real emotional feels and guilt trips, and of course excellent story telling and lewds. truely a masterpiece.

don't wanna spoil it, but Mia ending and that little nugget bombshell she's drops. i waw screaming at the screen... I Knew It. a little nugget from summer with Mia that i honestly forgot about until that very end bit.... wow. bravo Dev of the wild ride.

This Dev deserves your support via steam and /or via patreon.

I don't have much to add on the other reviews.. the game is complete and the art is good, that pretty much sets things off on a 4/5 footing.

What is bizarre about this VN though is that it basically forces the MC to be a scumbag. If you want to play this like a harem game, you will be disappointed.. you will be constantly guilted for cheating and there are no endings for most of the girls you can fool around with, let alone any sort of harem ending.

Instead, the game forces you to have what appears to be a perfectly awesome girlfriend (admittedly I kinda skipped through the story), cheat on her, and then decide whether to stick with her or go with your sister. Even a lot of VNs where there's a clear "main girl" have a route where you just focus on her and not others. If there's a girlfriend involved for the MC who isn't the main girl, then they either break up early or open the relationship. It's just poor escapism to have to be a scumbag and have it constantly rubbed in your face. It could've been avoided here but I guess the creator just thought the story would be better this way? Hard disagree..

I wanted to not give it 5 stars, but damn.. It deserves this. But... as it was game about reuniting with Mia, how dare you write the GF character so good? Like you didn't want MC to end with Mia at all.. The whole game was tug-in war between Mia and Sadie, and with how believable characters and story is written, forcing player to end one of this relationships in the end was.. HORRIBLE thing to do to players. I didn't even want to play again to unlock rest of the scenes, because I knew one of those two hearts will need to be broken again. And that's not even considering plentiful side-girls (tho I'm not sure if there could be any proper endings with them).

Oh yeah, and Sebastian was left off the hook way to easy. For him to be spoiling every single day of MC's life.. I'm not really advocate of violence, but this dude had it too good.

From the graphic side, it absolutelly is 5 star game, models are beautiful, animations are great, and there is plenty of amazing sex scenes. Well. Incenton is quite talented at this. But yes, giving me one of the hardest choices of LI I ever had in those type of games, even tho I was 200% team Mia after first season... How dare you...

A continuation of "Summer with Mia". It's been 2 years and you visit your Aunt for the summer, which is also where your sister Mia is living. You both are dating other people, but it seems your feelings for each other have not gone away. Navigate the women in your life and try to find the path to happiness.

The graphics of this game are fantastic! All the women are stunning and beautiful, there is no grind, and sex scenes are full of animations and aren't short. Everything you'd want in a porn game, except the story is a fucking downer!

First off, even though there is a large cast of sexy women, only two or three can actually be chosen to end the game with. The game destroys your chances at a harem and all the women get jealous and hurt the longer you string them along. Even with a walkthrough mod, it is impossible to see all the scenes without using the gallery or doing multiple playthroughs. Using the guide, I still somehow missed out on content with several girls I was prioritizing over the others. The variety is great, but it is unclear which choices will end romantic routes or cancel out others.

THE WORST part of the game is when you are forced to choose between your sister and your girlfriend. The game did way too good a job of making you love your girlfriend. She's just as adventurous in bed, is willing to share you with other women, and is the sweetest, cutest woman you'll ever know who also wants your babies and to live together forever. Contrast this with Mia, who wants you exclusively and is deeply jealous of other relationships, plays hard to get, and is seemingly always struggling with your relationship and doesn't see where the future goes with you.

Breaking the GF's heart to be with Mia absolutely WRECKED me. I hated myself and everything in my life that lead me there. I play porn games to escape reality and have fun, not be saddled with consequences and break virtual hearts of perfect women! The story of this game literally caused my discomfort and distress, which is a testiment to how well written the characters are but also how devilish the author is. Refusing to give the player any means of a harem route or not breaking a girl's heart. It is set up in a way that NO MATTER WHAT you will break either Mia or your GF's heart, and for that I can't stand to ever play this game again.

Fantastic quality, beautiful characters, but a manipulative and mean-spirited story. I know 3 stars seems harsh considering the quality of this experience, but emotional distress this game caused me at the end is something I never want to feel playing a porn game.

I'll start by saying that I was really enjoying it UNTIL the game forced me to sleep with Mia (EVEN WHEN I CHOSE ALL POSSIBLE WRONG ANSWERS WITH HER, THE GAME FORCED ME) that's one of the worst things a dev can do in a choice based game, not only that but at the end they said I cheated my girlfriend with someone that guess what? I DIDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING BECAUSE I CHOSE NOT TO! These choices are a joke and inceton managed to f*ck another one of his games somehow, disgusting.

Besides that the game has a somewhat boring but acceptable plot and the girls are nice (most of them anyway) it's a way better game compared to the last but still bad, go with you own risk

Don't often review games here, but man this one ticked all my boxes. I fell in love with Sadie. I saved her run until my final run because I just instantly fell for her character. All the endings were great. Loved Mia and he had a good ending, but I really loved the Sadie ending. Played a lot of VN's. Sadie might be in my top 5 characters just for how damn sweet she was and a little devil behind closed doors.

Pros:
1. Models in previous game has been uplifted to be better looking
2. New characters are not one-dimensional and add depth to story
3. Plot has some realism in it by adding ACTUAL consequences
4. Story doesn't go off on tangents and continue to center around MC (and also Mia), as per title
5. There's also MMF scenes besides the staple FFM scenes.

Cons:
1. If you are fan of multiple endings with each Love Interest (LI), then you will be disappointed.
2. Mia could use a better uplift in her looks.
3. Certain dialogue choices don't really matter ending-wise, they just only add flavour to the text. Can be kind of a downer sometimes.

I'd give this a 4.8/5 but F95zone only allows whole numbers so I rounded off to 5/5.